1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and a method for generating and recognizing a barcode in a portable terminal and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for generating and recognizing a barcode in a portable terminal, which can generate a barcode in which high capacity data can be stored, and, which can recognize the high capacity data stored in the barcode.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional two-dimensional barcode, such as a Quick Response (QR) Code (as in Japan) or a Matrix Code (as in the United States), is implemented by an algorithm in which low capacity data is stored and restored in a low density Dots Per Inch (DPI) environment, and a barcode having a size of 2 centimeters (cm)×2 cm can store and restore (e.g., decompressing and restoring the original data) data having a size of about 1000 bytes.
A Reed-Solomon algorithm and a redundancy block construction appropriate for storing and restoring a low density symbol (a minimum unit of information such as a bit) and an interleaving algorithm and a compression method optimized for the low-density DPI are relatively fast in comparison with a DPI with a high decoding rate. However, as modern optical technology is developed and performance of embedded processors are improved, the time difference between processing of low-density DPI and processing of high-density DPI is not very large, such that the necessity for the implementation of a barcode algorithm in the high density DPI is greater.
Since the conventional two-dimensional barcode stores low-capacity data, an Error Correcting Code (ECC) block (i.e., data for correcting an error) is limited, so that the barcode is sensitive to some minor noise. The ECC block may be able to guard against a random error but cannot always adequately guard against a burst error, and inevitably has a low error recovery rate of the barcode. Further, a method of encoding data necessary for an error correction statically determines an error correction level in each of preset levels in general, so that it is not efficient.
A currently used one-dimensional or two dimensional barcode has a small storage capacity, so that it is only able to store simple text data or numbers. Further, an existing barcode is of a form in which a size of the barcode is increased based on storage capacity, and in order to store large data, a size of the barcode must also be increased. Thus, such a large barcode would be mostly beyond a range recognizable by certain devices such as an embedded small camera. Furthermore, a capacity necessary for storing a simple Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) file or ordinary single music (a quartet) based on a Note Worthy Composer (NWC) format is approximately 4000 bytes, and existing barcodes cannot store such high capacity data. Finally, the one-dimensional or two dimensional barcode cannot support a capacity required for encoding a digital document, such as a Microsoft® Word file, to be used in a computer.